Still Kicking
by Lizewski
Summary: A sequel to Life Kicked Back and Kicking Ass for Life! Dave and Mindy's idyllic retirement from costumes and masks is shattered when a stranger comes calling.  It may be time to suit up again.  Finished.
1. Chapter One

NOTE: These characters were not created or owned by me and this was not done for profit.

**When I wrote "Kicking Ass for Life" and "Life Kicked Back," I intended it to be two and done. An attempt to envision a trilogy out of the first film. But for some reason I can't explain, I wanted to see these characters again and see what happens next. So if you think it sucks, I apologize in advance. But let's give it a shot.**

I always like the shape my name makes in inked cursive.

As I stood in the lobby of the art gallery, I tasted satisfaction in my breath. Beneath me lay my first art contract. The consignment was not the most favorable. The gallery would receive 60 percent of any and all sales, but this was a PARISIAN gallery! One that would get my name off the streets and into the galas and parties of the affluent who think thousands of Euros spent on a piece of paper covered in acrylic is a bargain. I hoped with this signature my "wife" and I could begin our ascent to such frivolity. And still, the name wasn't even mine.

Constance grabbed the check off her desk and oozed a _fabulous _smile at me. She praised my talent and brilliance in both French and broken English. "Ah, Monsieur Ayers, this is the beginning for you," she gleamed. "Soon, all of Paris will know you are one of their brightest lights."

"Call me Owen," I insisted. I doubted much of Paris cares a wit about another starving artist who still spends most of his days sketching overweight tourists by the Arc de Triomphe. But it was only the moneyed ones I needed to love me. I stood there and let the gallery procurer continue to blow smoke at me until I felt my lungs would burst. Finally, I shook her hand and again thanked her for this opportunity before making for what I hoped was an emergency exit.

As I stepped out into the warm air of Paris, I soaked in the beauty of the city right before dusk. The lights were twinkling on and the sun gave a golden hue across the landscape. According to my smartphone, it was close to freezing and raining in New York today, and I was wearing a light shirt and casual pants. Sometimes, dropping off the face of the Earth is the only way to start living. For that, I'm still glad Dave Lizewski and Mindy Macready no longer existed. I put my hands in my pockets and walked down the streets that had become as familiar to me as the neighborhoods in Queens once were. All that was missing from my idyllic stroll was a whistle and a blue bird on my shoulder. Despite how goofy I looked, I knew I was happy.

The five years since Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl rode off into the sunset has not all been sunshine and rose-sented bowel movements. Yes, Mindy—or is it Abby? Or Alice? All her aliases get jumbled in my head, so I sometimes call her Malice, though the bruises on my arms wish I didn't—brought her suitcase of $2.5 million with her. But a good chunk of that paid for the new identities and the new life. The rest she still refuses to spend, insisting we don't need it to live. We may not _need _it, but I sure as shit wouldn't mind it. That was one of the many sore spots I would sometimes bring up to Mrs. Ayers. Our fights must be legendary to the neighbors in our apartment building. How can they NOT notice the neighbors who keep to themselves and never throw any parties, but are always breaking their furniture? We also risked breaking just as many bones and property in the make-up sex that makes worth it afterwards. All in all, it has been a beautiful blur and far more than a self-righteous geek from Queens without a college degree deserved. And now, with my career finally taking off, we've turned the corner.

I stopped by the "florist"/guy on the side of the road selling withered flowers before reaching our block. Eventually, I came upon our poor excuse of a flat and couldn't help but sigh. Soon, we'd be moving out and into our first real home. I often wonder if I burned this shit hole down on our last day if the other tenants would feel angry or liberated. When I entered the door with the broken lock, old Madame Milieux tried to shout out after me from her room. I was _so close_ to making it up the stairs without seeing her. I decided to call it a push and kept going.

"You and your wife need to be out of here by the end of the week," the old woman cried. Leave it to the madame to make the French language sound ugly. I ran up the stairs without even glancing over my shoulder at her.

"Yes, Madame. My wife and I will be free from your prison soon enough."

"Good," she muttered and then spit on her own floor. "I've had enough noise complaints about you two…._Americans_." I made it to the third floor (or second in French), opened the door and shut it behind me before I heard that shrill voice follow me up the steps. With the door safely slammed, I took in our rat trap once more. It was an elegant space: Hard wood floors scarred and marred with a thousand little scratches, dried plaster on the ceiling that smelled like milk in the summer (we have no air conditioning), a queen-sized bed in the center with a torn comforter and food stains from when it doubled as our table, and a window smaller than a normal person's head with a potted plant that never bloomed in front of it (Malice's sole attempt at interior design). There was also my wife. _My wife?_

"You're home early," I said surprised. Standing by the flower with our crumbling watering pot was Abby Ayers.

"Don't sound so upset, _mère-tête_," she said with that wicked smile of hers. She always made it when she wanted to tease, taunt or titillate and I've loved it as any other of her expressions. I went over to our small sink and poured some water while she looked me over. "It must have gone well," she said noticing the stack of crated paintings I took with me was missing.

"You could say that."

"How much," she asked. I gave her my poker stare. "How much," she said again walking across the room. "HOW MUCH," she grabbed my groin in her hand.

"….40 percent consignment," I squeezed out. The wicked smile morphed into giddy delight. I couldn't help but laugh too after she let go. "It's better than I should have gotten this soon." She put her arms around me and leaned up for a kiss.

"Not too soon, Monsieur Family Man." She kissed me, but her mocking brought back that fear. Though she was only seven weeks along, my son/daughter would soon be in this world. That was one great responsibility I never thought KA could bare.

"Then it's even more for the better. You don't want our baby to grow up in this dump."

"I grew up in boot camp to become a child assassin," she said with her smile close to mine. "I don't really think we could fuck up anymore than Daddy did." I kissed her brow and made a mental note to get her to stop cursing like a 40-year-old sailor in the port of Bangkok. But not today. Today she could swear until the moon vanished. "Soon, you'll have your house in the suburbs."

"That's not what they call them around here."

"Just don't ask me to put on an apron or cook for you." She put the bucket down. She was wearing a lavender robe that glowed in the low light from the porthole. I then handed her the bouquet of generic flowers in my hand.

"You haven't asked about these yet."

"Why would I want those?" she said, not giving them a second glance.

"Because they actually look nice, unlike that weed over there," I said pointing towards the disheveled plant.

"I like the _weed._ It has character." She pulled back and stood by the bed, her body silhouetted in the dying light.

"You're already too much character for this closet we live in," I smirked. She opened her mouth and faked a laugh. I looked at her robe again as it mingled with her blonde hair. _This woman loves purple._ "You changing?"

"You're the one who said we'd be celebrating tonight. Go out someplace way too expensive."

"Change of plans," I whispered as my hand started to undo her roping. "I know the best place in town to eat at." I pushed her back onto the bed. "And it doesn't even have a dress code." I leaned over her to steal a kiss, but pulled back at the last second before she could have it. I lowered myself to my knees and situated my head between her legs. She began to breathe heavily as my hand reached up to grab her breasts.

"Oh…I should have known, you pervy little bastard." _Pervy?_ I had to raise my head to that one.

"Say what?"

"Don't play innocent. You met me when I was eleven." She flashed her wicked smile down at me.

"And now you're twenty-five."

"Twenty-four, stalker." She was giggling.

"We didn't do anything until you were twenty!"

"Nineteen."

"And you seduced me!"

"Did I?" she shrugged with faux-innocence. The robe fell off her shoulders and she leaned forward. In the last of the daylight, she looked like a nude sculpture.

"In some courtrooms, it'd be called rape," I insisted.

"Oh, I guess I did," she said with the wickedness turning to triumph. "I must have 'raped' you three times that very night." I grinned at my tormentor. My "wife." My partner. Mother of my unborn child.

"As long as you admit it," I finally whispered.

"And I plan to 'rape' you twice as much tonight," she said as she grabbed my hair. With freakish super-strength for her petite size, she pushed my head back down.

"But first you have a job to fini—" she trailed off with a soft moan.


	2. Chapter Two

Benicio smirked as he approached.

My easel was already out and I had a pile of cheap canvas material—really it's fancy parchment paper—in front of me when he saw me. Benicio is a pleasant chap, 20 or so (after a while it's become harder to discern), and always affable company. Still, seeing someone ten years younger than me starting where I've been stuck for years kind of pisses me off. It's like Peter Parker staring at Miles Morales or some shit. I still think of myself as a kid, but my thin beard's been graying and my face hardening. It doesn't help that he's moved into my racket as an English speaker coddling the American tourists. Sure, he's from Barcelona, but that just means he speaks with an Antonio Banderas drawl while I still sound like the nasally geek from Queens. He's probably why I've avoided being around the Eiffel Tower for the last year. But that didn't matter so much now.

"Owen Ayers! _Zut alors_, I thought you threw yourself in the river and drowned," he said with a shit-eating grin.

"No way, _l'etudiant_," I replied. I knew he hated when I pulled seniority on him. "If I did that, you'd be able to corner the market on assholes."

"You didn't notice?" Benicio stabbed at his teeth with a toothpick as he looked over both shoulders. "I already have." He tossed the pick and returned to smirking. "The student has surpassed the master."

"Only a master of evil." He laughed at that.

"Yeah, I guess when I struck you down, you did become more powerful Owen-Wan." Suddenly, I remembered why I liked this prick in the first place. Underneath all his glossy awesomeness, he was a Star Wars geek at heart. He kind of reminded me of a suave, hipper version of my high school BFFs, Todd and Marty. "You became so powerful I hear you're going legit. Constance is opening your work at a gala next month?" He raised his eyebrows. I stared at him dumbfounded.

"Where'd you hear that?"

"It's all over the art-peddlers around here. You're making us proud." I liked that. "In fact, I'm surprised to see you out here."

"Nobody's bought anything yet," I cautioned. "Abby and I need the money." I told him how we're moving into an actual (small) house. I left out the part about knocking her up.

"Wow man, things sound like they're finally going your way. I only hope they cut for me like that before I'm also middle-aged." He gave me a big, toothy grin.

"Ah, fuck off, Puss in Boots."

"_Et __que la __force__ soit avec toi,"_ he said with a bow. _Geeky little bugger, _I thought as he strode off. Yet, I couldn't help but smile to myself. Things have been going ridiculously well the last few months. The mess of a whirlwind I jumped into with Mindy five years ago has landed us in a new life that's so much more satisfying than when I made a (more successful) living fantasizing about being a superhero. I obviously still missed it some…otherwise I wouldn't have bonded with that Spanish bastard. But things truly are going great. Even the pregnancy, which pushed me off my feet a week ago, had become a blessing. Thinking about the reaction is still cringe-inducing, but I no longer feel like I'm having a heart attack when I think of the baby. In fact, I love the thought of having a kid. But were Mindy and I parents? Our forged passports lie that we're married, but I don't know. Do I _feel _it? Is she really a wife or just one damaged kid latching onto another still playing dress up? And could they -could I- protect a child in this fucked up world?

It was last Tuesday when I'd come to bug Mindy at her job at the repetitively named _Le Café_ along the Seine. She serves coffee under the name Alice, because she doesn't want any of the 'sick fuckers' at work to find out where she lives. "What's the worst that could happen?" I always asked.

"I'd have a dead body to dispose of," she'd respond dryly. So, every so often I made my rounds to the café and pretended she was a complete stranger while she poured my coffee. Afterwards, I always called her Alice at home. For that I got punched. If I called her Malice, it was two punches.

On my coffee break a week ago, she asked me to come to the bathroom with her. _Breaking your cover?_ Not that I was complaining, our love life was becoming complacent and sparse these days. When we were inside, I took her in my arms.

"I've always had a thing for you, _Alice_, but you know I'm married?" She shrugged off my arms.

"I don't have time for this, Dave." I was taken aback by the use of my real name.

"Mademoiselle, you must be mistaken. I am not this _Dave."_

"And I'm not bleeding." I looked at her confused. After rolling her eyes, she put a white strip in my hand. On it I saw a little pink plus sign. "I'm pregnant, dumbass." It felt like I just got run over by the chunnel.

"P-p-preg…."

"Preggars. Knocked up. Damaged goods. Bun in the oven." I saw her lips moving, but I couldn't register what she was saying.

"Pregnant?" She began to smile at my stupidity.

"You fucked my cunt up good this time, Ass-Kick." She put her arms around me and had true delight in her eyes. _She's happy?_ Those eyes are always so serious, always so mature. They're wiser than mine and more cynical too. When they light up and erase all that pain and baggage, I can't help but get swept away with her. I mustered a weak smile. She began kissing me there and we've been celebrating since.

I sighed to myself again as I started pulling out my pencils and oils for the day. We surely must still be celebrating since we're fucking like rabbits hopped up on Viagra and E. Mindy says she wants to get it out of her system before she gets too big or has an infant crying its fucking little head off in the bedroom. I wonder if I should be more worried about her maternal instincts? In any case, I've enjoyed the last week. It's like it was when we first came to this city, even if it hurt to stand this morning. Still, I owe taking her out someplace nice and toasting our good fortune. Hopefully, by the time the baby comes I won't even have to be doing this street-side crap.

It was midday when I saw the stranger ask Benicio where I was. Benicio pointed to me and grinned with a knowing nod as the man approached. _A patron?_ The idea made me shake my head at myself. I could hear Mindy's voice calling me "Ass-Kick" in the back of my mind. The man stepped over garbed in an all-black suit. It looked way too trendy and way too hot for sight seeing. He was wearing designer sunglasses and had a close-cropped goatee on his face. His hair was slicked back with way too much gel and probably wasn't even real, given the receding hairline. He stood in front of me sheepishly.

"Monsieur Ayers?" He smiled his extra-whitened teeth at me.

"Call me Owen." We shook hands. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" He took off his sunglasses and gave me a smoldering stare. After a moment, I realized he was waiting for me to exclaim some sort of recognition. He _did _look familiar, but I just couldn't place it. "Have I sketched you before," I asked while holding up my hands.

"I don't think I've had the pleasure," he grinned. He motioned if he could sit in my subject's stool. I nodded and began drawing his face in fine pencil. "So what's an American like yourself doing sketching tourists by the Eiffel Tower?"

"I'm usually by the Arc de Triomphe."

"But why Paris?" He smiled.

"One city is as good as another and I wanted to get out of the States for a while."

"I can_ understand_ that," he said with an odd vocal inflection. "I have houses in LA and New York, but I much prefer the richness of Old Europe."

"I wouldn't call them that to their faces if I were you," I said. "They're likely to take offense."

"Do you think I care what these frog-eaters think?" He looked pointedly at me now. "But I'll take your opinion over theirs." _My opinion?_ I tightened my hand around the pencil.

"You talk as if you know me."

"I wish I knew you better," he sighed. "But I'm a great admirer of yours. Take my word on it, _Dave."_ The hairs on the back of my neck began to rise.

"Excuse me," I slowly said as I rose and walked over to him. He was on his feet too, looking me in the eyes.

"I think you heard me, _Dave_. Or should I call you by your other name? And I don't mean Owen Ayers," he whispered in my ear.

I didn't know how to respond to him. Was he another Stevie Augustus-styled stalker? In whatever case, he clearly knew who I was. I finally managed, "I don't know what you're talking about." I'm not sure why I even put up the pretense.

"Oh…I think you doooooooo," he was still grinning. "The world is too small for Kick-Ass to disappear in….or Hit-Girl." My eyes started burning a hole in his smug fucking forehead. "I think you know her. Mindy Macready? Or is it Abby Ayers? Or Alice? Tell you what, why don't we walk on over to the _Le Café_ and ask her?" My throat went dry.

"Ask her what?" I managed.

"What name she wants me to call her when she comes with us?" _If that's the way this asshole wants it._ "I have such trouble keeping them straight."

"That's why I call her mal…." I trailed off in a mumble. He leaned his head close to mine.

"You call her what?"

"_Malice_," I said before slashing the sharpened pencil across his face, leaving a long bloody gash. I headbutted him in that face and kneed him as keeled over. Benicio turned to watch the commotion as the stranger rolled on the ground. I took off running past him. Another douchebag came out of nowhere and was hauling ass after me. I only heard the crashing sound of Benicio's easel slamming into his head. When I looked back, the bastard was collapsed.

Benicio smiled at me and shouted out, "_Q__ue la __force__ soit avec toi!"_

_ "Et toi!" _I yelled back. I began running again. Running for the café. Running for Mindy. Running for my wife.


	3. Chapter Three

***If you're enjoying this story - and even if you're not - please leave a review. I always am interested in what people have to say.**

.

Mindy was standing by an outdoor umbrella, handing coffee to a Parisian youth.

She was in her traditional clothing of a low cut black tight shirt with deep violet trimmings, a black skirt, stockings, heels, and her long golden hair pulled back into a sharp ponytail. She says she liked working here because the tips were better for waitressing due to the attire. I think she likes it because they make her wear purple. When she saw me her blue eyes lit up for a moment and then turned to stone when she saw the panic in mine. Ignoring all pretenses, I ran right up to her and pulled her to the side of her building. The cup of coffee spilled from her hand onto the table while the tray wobbled in her other.

"What do you think you're doing here," she demanded more out of concern than anger.

"It's bad Mi-A-Alice." Her eyes flashed a second of anger but I held up my hand. "You know what I mean...Right this second we're looking at _Unmasking," _I said, remembering our draconian code terms. It was impossible to tell whether this scared her or not, because her poker face remained perfectly in place.

"_Norman Osborn_ threat level?"

"Possibly. It may only be _Eddie Brock_. But there was more than one of them and they were in very nice suits." She nodded and in the same moment threw her tray of dishes into the café's wall. As we ran off, one of her supervisors came out: a middle-aged woman in the same garish outfit.

"Alice what do you think you're doing," she cried out in French.

"Getting the fuck out of Paris," she spat back.

When we were several blocks along, I stopped Mindy. "What do you mean leaving Paris?"

"This is Scenario: _Casablanca_." Her expression was blank as the wind blew loose strands of hair in her eyes.

"What?" I practically shouted. "They're not Interpol!"

"How do you know?"

"Interpol doesn't pose for portraits before they arrest you. This is not legal, whatever it is."

"It's Scenario: _Casablanca," _she repeated.

"Fuck _Casablanca,_" I snorted between breaths. "This is our home, Mindy. We've built an actual LIFE here. Are we supposed to just start over…._AGAIN?"_

"We did it before," she said looking at me coldly. "We can do it again."

"I don't want to do that," I whined. "Do you know how long it took for Owen Ayers to mean something? We can't just hit the reset button."

"It doesn't matter," she insisted. "We have each other."

"No….We also have a baby. It's not here, but it's coming...Mindy, I'm 30 and you're pregnant. We can't start from nothing again. Not when our only marketable skill is killing people."

"It doesn't matter," she had caught her breath now and was starting to move, but I grabbed her wrist.

"It DOES matter. Whoever these guys are…they found us once and they'll find us again. Do you want to raise your kid looking over your shoulder? You grew up like that. Is that what you want for your son or daughter?" Finally she showed emotion on her face and it was rage.

"Don't talk about shit you don't understand," her eyes were red. "We can make sure she's safe no matter what!" _She's?_

"How? Are you going to put _her_ in a cape and show _her_ how to use a katana too?" I didn't feel the sudden slap, but I was pained somewhere much deeper than my face all the same. For a moment neither of us said anything.

"I'm sorry, Mindy…I deserved that." Silence. She kept her head down, not even looking at me. "You're right, we should just get out of here before things gets worse." She didn't raise her head. Instead, she continued to study her shoes.

"We're going to need to go home first."

"Why," I asked more out of habit than thought.

"She…or he….our kid needs that $2+ million if we're starting from nothing." _The suitcase under the bed._

"And what if they're already there?"

"Then I'll cut their balls off, shove their cocks up their asses and shit on their dead bodies." My mouth plunged open. "...And hopefully that will be the end of it."

.

The dung heap we've called home for so long looked innocent enough from a distance. In the gold mid-afternoon light, it even looked peaceful. We thought about performing some sort of reconnaissance before going in or walking by in disguise. Mindy finally decided that that was pussy shit and walked straight through the front door.

Madame Milieux came out of her fly-ridden room right on schedule to complain at us. But as soon as she saw Mindy's face, she didn't utter an annoyance and went back inside. I walked behind Mindy on the stairs. I had to suffocate a laugh at her bare feet. She had taken her heels off. If she had to kill someone, she wanted to do it comfortably. Somehow she looked overdressed for the occasion in those stockings and the tight skirt; I, on the other hand, looked like a middling Steven Spielberg with the plaid over shirt and graying beard.

When we opened our door, I don't know if she felt relief or disappointment that there wasn't anyone to disembowel. She walked over to the bed and threw it against the wall. She found the briefcase and opened it. _Two million dollars and change._ I shut it and picked it up.

"Let's do it your way and go. We're lucky it's been this easy," I said.

"Easy," she muttered absent-mindedly. _CRACK._ We heard the noise at the same time and walked over to the stairwell. We could hear the Madame barking in French at someone. Mindy listened to the foot steps entering and raised two fingers. _Two._ Then more. _Three. Six. Eight. _Madame Milieux was still grumbling when we heard her shriek. Then the gunshot followed by a thud. Mindy and I spun around and went back into the apartment. She marched to the wall by the sink and without a second's hesitation punched in a gaping hole. It swallowed her whole arm as she reached around for her hidden treasures. First, she pulled out an automatic shotgun and cocked it in her right hand while her left was in the wall looking for more. She found a handgun, a Walter of some kind and tossed it to me.

"You know I never loved these things," I said dryly as I loaded it with the clip she tossed in the same breath.

"Then find something else useful to use," she retorted without looking from the wall. She pulled out an Uzi for herself, another handgun, her last trusty Benchmade Model 42 Butterfly Knife, and several other weapons. There was movement now coming up the stairs. Mindy casually walked to the front door and waited until the feet were outside of it. There was a faint whisper signaling they were about to kick it in and she just shook her head. She aimed her shotgun and let out a blast that obliterated the door off the hinges. On the other side three men lay on the ground screaming bloody murder at the metal ripping into their bodies. Mindy moved like a snake into the hall and stood over them. She pulled out the handgun tied to the back of her waitressing belt and surgically put a bullet into each dying man's forehead.

There was noise from the stairwell. She looked back at me. "More are coming." She raised her hand and signaled for me to follow. I grabbed the briefcase and did just that. Standing in the center of the hallway she opened two hand-sized canisters and tossed them down the corridor. White smoke hissed out of them as they slid down the stairs. I could hear them cursing beneath us as she kicked open the door across from our room. Jamal, a 20-something French-Algerian college student looked up from his laptop with first shock and then terror as he saw Mindy wielding the shotgun in her arms. Despite being an adult and dressed liked a woman grown, that gun still looked too big for her and she resembled a little girl playing with her father's power tools.

"Sorry Jamal," I said trailing in after her. Smoke was filling the hall behind me. Mindy slammed the door shut and looked through the glassed hole as the shouting from below grew louder. "Don't worry," I tried to reassure Jamal. He was staring at my gun. The cursing was now outside the door. "Would you believe it's because we didn't pay our taxes?" I asked with a rueful smile and a whisper. I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt.

"DAVE, DOWN!" Mindy screamed. I was on my stomach as the machine gun fire came through the door. _That's six times Mindy's saved my life._ I saw Jamal's arm fall off the side of the bed covered in blood. I tried to look away, but Mindy was already pulling me back to my feet and to her side. We stood alongside the wall by the door writ with holes. Mindy stealthily pulled out her Butterfly Knife. The door creaked open and Mindy slit wide open the throat of the first man through. In the same movement, she jumped into the smoke filled hallway before anyone could see what she was doing. I saw gunfire in the smoke and heard shouting. _They can't see her because she's using a knife._ I saw the back of one of the goons standing in the doorway now. He was backing up, frightened of Mindy. I raised my pistol and FIRED.

….I missed. I fired two more shots and only grazed him in the shoulder. _Shit. I knew I should have gone to the ranges with Mindy on Sunday mornings._ He was turning towards me now, aiming his gun at my face. I charged the overweight bastard full force and we went through the smoky hallway, through the remnants of the door to _our _apartment and fell on the scratched floor. I had him on his back and was punching him repeatedly. His face had gone bloody, but he was still conscious and incredibly pissed. _Fuck it, I should have gone to the gym more too._ I felt the side of his fist crash into my face. I could taste the blood mixing with my beard as I rolled off of him. He was on his feet immediately and towering above me. Before he could stomp down, I raised my shoe into his nuts. _At least that still fucking works._ I got to my feet as he grabbed me by the shoulders and tossed me into the wall. He turned me around and put his hands around my throat. He was mumbling something not in English or French…but Spanish?

"wants….alive…too bad," was all I could make out. High school was a long, long time ago. I could feel the world fading around me. I desperately stretched my arms out in both directions for something—ANYTHING! I felt my fingertips grasp around something. A weed? No, a plant. _Sorry, Mindy._ I smashed the potted greenery against his face and he was out like a light. I reached for my throat, gasping for oxygen. Mindy's head popped through the doorway. It was splashed with blood all over and her clothes were soaked in a dark crimson. Her hair looked like she just stepped out of the rave scene from the beginning of _Blade. _Despite that, she looked incredibly happy with a big goofy grin on her face.

"Come see what I did!" I finished coughing and stumbled into the hallway. Dead, mutilated bodies were strewn everywhere. "I did awesome, right?"

"Yeah…" I said between coughs. "Mother of the freaking year." I have to admit though, seeing how gleefully happy she was drenched in all that blood was kind of hot.

I tried to take a deep breath and realized I couldn't. I sniffed the air. It was smoke…but a different kind smoke. Flames were creeping up from the stairwell.

"I didn't do that," she said with sudden urgency. She grabbed at my arm and pulled me behind her like a dumb toddler. We were back in Jamal's room. She picked up the moneyed suitcase and then her shotgun and emptied it into the far wall. When she was done, the small window was now a life-sized hole. She looked down at the river beneath. I stood next to her and gaped at the Seine.

"You can't be serious," I moaned. She grabbed me by the back of the neck and tried to swallow my tongue with her mouth like it was the last cup of water she'd ever drink. After a few moments she pulled back.

"In case you don't make it." She had that wicked smile on her face again. _Ah, nuts._ A moment later we were falling to the crap-filled water below. _I'M GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT._

.

The apartment was a furnace by the time we were back on the ground. I prayed that everyone made it out, but thinking of Jamal and even Madame Milieux made my stomach start turning. There was a huge crowd shouting all around it as fire fighters were only just reaching the flames. Mindy was leaning on me as we walked. The river water had turned all the blood on her into a caked, muddy brown. She was still giddy. I began looking at her with concern.

"What," she smirked. "We got what you came for!" She lifted the briefcase above her head like a trophy. "Now all we need." She stopped in her tracks. "Now all we nee…." And she collapsed in my arms. _The baby. _I tried patting her face. _God help me, what if there's something wrong with the baby?_ She was barely conscious and I had to drag her along a near riotous sidewalk._ God please, not the baby._

Unsure of what else to do, I feebly started calling for help. "HELP! ANYONE….HELP US!" There were people all around but no one was paying attention. They were all staring at the fire and making their own angry cries. "SOMEBODY, HELP US. HELP _HER!"_ She was now slumping her entire body weight onto me. _It was the fall. It must have been the fall! What if there is internal bleeding? What if, what if, what if…._The ambulance almost hit us as it pulled up in front. The back of the van opened up and two paramedics jumped out.

"Help her," I whimpered with tears were running down my face. "We were in the building and had to jump out. She's pregnant. Only seven weeks, but the fall might have…" they took her out of my arms and loaded her up into the van without even listening to most of what I was saying. I stood by the open doors and saw no medical equipment inside. One of them was injecting her with something in the neck. _My blood went cold._ "You're not doctors…"

I didn't even see where the blow to the back of my head came from before everything went black.


	4. Chapter Four

****This story is about to get kind of WEIRD. Just stick with me and we'll see where we come out. The story knows what it wants to be and who am I to argue? It _is _going to be different.**

**.**

The absence of my beard was the first thing I noticed.

My hand rubbed against my clean-shaven face as my eyes battled a terrible dream. _Where's the beard?_ I sat up immediately and looked around. I was somewhere dark and damp. As my eyes adjusted to the shadows I tried to make sense of what had happened. Not sure if I was half-awake or still asleep, I focused on the dream I just escaped from. It was an old standby…Mindy saving me from a luminous sea of gold and orange. As I floated into oblivion, Mindy, whether as a child or a woman, a lover or an angel, would appear with golden glowing hair and save me from drowning. But this was somehow off. _She didn't save me_. I saw her in the water far in front of me, but she was _different_. She was with child. And not as she is or —God help me— was. No, her belly was round and beautiful. She must have been eight or nine months along. It wasn't me who was drowning…she was the one crying for help. I tried to swim to her, but the closer I got the further she floated from me under the unending sea. She sank. Down into the abyss. I reached for her hand and felt little fingers. It was our baby now in her arms. Madonna and child. _God help me, I can't save them. I CAN'T SAVE THEM!_ They disappeared into the shadows below and…I woke up.

The blackness gave way to silent shapes before me. I was in a cell of some kind. The floor I lay on was made of thick, _old _stone. I could tell by the breeze in the room that there must be a window of some kind. Given the darkness, it must be before dawn. Eventually, I could see the bed…and someone in it. I tried to approach it, but the chains on my legs barely let me stand and the ones on my arms were bolted to the wall holding me in place. The figure on the bed shifted their weight and rolled on their back. It was too dark to make out many details but I knew the outline of that face better than my own.

"Mindy," I gasped. She moved again, still asleep. _"MINDY," _I shouted without a care of who might be listening. Her eyes flipped open with the rapid focus of an automatic rifle. She instinctively sat up and tried to get off the bed, but only found herself chained to the mattress. She muttered something and looked over to me.

"Dave," she asked with more hesitation in her voice than I've heard in half a decade.

"I'm here, Mindy."

"Can you move?"

"No more than you can."

"What the fuck's going on?"

"I have no idea. I remember the fire and the fall and…" it was all coming back now. "The baby….Mindy, the baby…" She reached for her stomach and sucked in a breath. It was still flat and impossible to tell that life was incubating within. At least, I prayed so.

"She's safe," Mindy said. I didn't feel any more relief.

"How do you know?"

"I can sense her." I hoped she was right as much as I was starting to hope it's a girl just for Mindy's sake.

"Are you sure?"

After a long, horrid pause, Mindy whispered, "No." She looked around and took in her bearings as best she could. "Where are we?"

"Someplace with thick stone masonry. In France…assuming we're still in France…that could be a hundred thousand different places. "Also, Mindy…you're in one of your Hit-Girl outfits."

"I know, Dave. And you're in your Kick-Ass gear." I looked down at my body and slowly recognized the faded green and yellow in the darkness. _What the fuck is going on?_

****Sorry for the shortness of this chapter. I'm not trying to copy you, Makokam. ;) I promise the next one will be coming VERY FAST.**


	5. Chapter Five

It was well past daybreak when we heard movement outside.

Mindy and I remained quiet for most of the morning, not sure what to say. I've never seen Mindy scared, so I don't know if this was it…but if it wasn't, she was doing a pretty good simulation of the emotion. She kept herself busy by looking around what in daylight clearly became a cell. _Probably medieval._ She claimed she was inspecting the space for weaknesses, but there were none to be found. All the stones were smoothed and gray. They were weathered, but they looked fearsome. There was a thick oak door that was about three feet wide and less than six feet high to our right. To the left was a tall, barred window sans any glass. _At least that's bigger than our apartment's. _Outside, I could hear the faint pattering of the sea.

Mindy's bed was simply a mattress missing any sheets. The bed frame looked old and decrepit, but we were obviously not here for comfort. As the sun rose, I noticed Mindy's hair had been dyed purple. Her outfit was based on one of her briefer appearances as Hit-Girl in New York five years ago. It had been a cosplayer costume a friend discovered on short notice and Mindy seemed to hate it now as much as she hated it then —the low cut corset-esque top, the small, tight purple shorts — Mindy thought it was slutty and unfitting of her moniker. Her hair had also been dyed purple during that relapse phase. Whoever went to the trouble of doing this was meticulous in detail.

My suit, on the other hand, did not resemble my sleek Hollywood-ized design I wore as a comic book creator. No, it was the cheap one-size-fits-all wetsuit I wore as a teenager. Somebody clearly had a favorite and it wasn't me.

Our discussions that punctuated awkward silence were brief and revolved around where in France we think we might be, who could afford to do something like this and why.

"Do you think it could be another one of those fanboy freaks?" Mindy asked after a few hours. I stood back up; alternating between sitting and standing to help my back was all I could do.

"Possibly," I mumbled. "But Stevie Augustus was a nutjob who was given enough backing by corporate dickheads to send out threatening messages. He was too _unstable_ to have the money, patience or…competence to pull something like this off."

"Mafia?"

"If it was someone related to the D'Amicos or their associates, why all the pageantry and theatrics? Why not just put two in the back of our heads Michael Corleone-style and be done with it?"

"They're going to wish they had when I'm done with them," Mindy mumbled to herself. And so our conversations and silences went for hours on end. The only thing we never talked about was the child.

.

Midday came soon enough and with it, the door finally opened. A man in a black martial arts uniform covered by a silky blue bathrobe entered the room, having to duck his head under the low door frame. I recognized the face instantly…not least of all because of the faint cut above the cheek left by my pencil. I leaped to my feet.

"This is the asshole who fucked with me by the art stand!" Mindy, who had been lying down when the door opened sat straight up not with anger, but sheer disbelief on her face. I was trying to reach him with my hands, but he was too far away.

"It's good to see you're both awake and…enjoying my hospitality," he said muffling a giggle.

"Why?" Mindy said. He looked at her and bowed.

"It is so lovely to finally meet the real and original, _Hit-Girl._"

"Why," she mouthed again. _She recognizes him?_

"Mindy, you know who this fucktard is," I yelled at her.

"Duh, Ass-Kick, it's Marcus Cain," she said, still in shock.

"Marc Cain?" _The movie star?_ Then it came together…at least sort of. That's where I'd seen his face before…in an endless line of terrible action movies. Mindy made me watch a few of them years ago when we first shacked up, but they all blurred together as the same film. Hero or villain, he always screamed or shouted his lines at amp level 11. He would dawn some terrible accent, hook up with the increasingly younger leading lady and say some terrible punch line before blowing some shit up. The only thing I could think of that distinguished one of his movies from another was his amorphous and shifting hairline.

"A fucking actor," I said aloud. "An actor is behind all this bullshit?" He turned from Mindy to me.

"Well, I'd like to think I'm held a little higher in esteem than being merely _an actor_."

"My daddy showed me the two movies you did with John Woo…they were the first English language films I'd ever seen." Mindy was completely off in la-la land. He turned his head to her and beamed a ferocious smile.

"That's HIGH PRAISE! Your father was a wise man." Mindy's head came plummeting back down to Earth and her eyes narrowed like a jungle cat's.

"He also got himself burned to death in gasoline on the Internet," she hissed.

Marc Cain continued to smile. "I can still understand that," he japed. "All my movies end with something being lit on fire."

"Maybe your life will too," Mindy suggested, not unhelpfully.

"In any case, I'm grateful that you recognize me." He took another bow. "Unlike some people," he said with his back towards me. "But I must confess I don't come to you today as an actor or international movie star." He stepped back so he was now facing both of us. "No, that's my day job. This…._this is my passion._" He paused for dramatic effect. "You see…I am a COLLECTOR!" Mindy looked over at me. She was as utterly confused as I was. He caught the glance.

"Don't misunderstand me," he continued. "I am also a fan. I have the first _Action Comics_ ever printed! I have the original production cels of the Fleischer _Superman_ cartoon!" He looked over at me and nodded. "I even have your complete run on _Kick-Ass_, before Marvel rebooted it and turned you and Hit-Girl into something unrecognizable." This was worse than a fanboy. This was a fanboy with money, ego and too much power. "I even have the original draft of the unfilmed _Kick-Ass_ screenplay that you held before killing Harvey Francis."

"We didn't kill him," I said coldly.

"Well, you sure fooled everyone on the Web when you and Mindy fled the COUNTRY!" There was that awkward vocal inflection again. He cackled like a hyena at himself. "But as a fan of your writing, I could see why you'd want to kill over _that_ script."

"Were you a fan of that doodle," I said motioning to the visible cut on his face.

"A mark from Kick-Ass? I wear it like a badge of honor."

"Give me something sharp and I'll honor you again." His eyes shined with joy.

"How?" Mindy said more to herself than to him. "How did you find us?"

"I spent years looking for you. I couldn't move until I had all the chess pieces…and now here you are. You killed almost a dozen mercenaries I paid, but you're still here."

"WHAT IS THIS SHIT?" I bellowed. Like watching his movies, I had had enough. "Do you fancy yourself some great supervillain like Red Mist? Is this your Dr. Evil lair? Are you going to lower us into a fucking shark tank?"

He walked within inches of my reach and stared at me with dripping condescension. "I know this is a lot to take in, but I am not so small minded as Chris D'Amico. He was a poser with a lot of money who started a gang war. I mean to make the ULTIMATE comic book event come to life right here on this very island." _So, we're on an island?_ He kept yammering. "I'm not talking about playing Victor Von Doom. I'm talking about COLLECTING something more EPIC than Civil War_!" I guess he really wasn't overacting those crazy eyes in all those movies._

"You want us to fight you?" He shook his at me once more. "You won't be fighting me, Kick-Ass."

"My name's Dave Lizewski, dipshit!" It was my turn to yell. "There's nothing super about us! We were kids in costumes!"

"Tell that to the corpses she left burning in that building," he said pointing to Mindy.

"I'm pregnant, numbnuts," Mindy chimed in. "I'm not going to fight for your amusement." He glanced back at her.

"No…you're going to fight for your baby's life. The winner will be given that gift. It's the reason I saved your child." Mindy and I were both numb. "It was nothing really, you just were overworked and had too much adrenaline the day of the fire. But _the help_…" he giggled at the term, "said your boyfriend was hysterical. I brought in several doctors. Your baby's fine…for now. If you want it to stay that way, you'll fight or you'll _both_ die." My rage was starting to literally make my vision cloud into a fog. "We're just lucky you can still fit in that costume without any problems."

"THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FUCKING COSTUME," Mindy screamed. "WHY IS IT HIT-GIRL ALWAYS ATTRACTS THE PERVERTS AND SICK FUCK-OS LIKE YOU!"

"You don't like this iteration of the costume?" He sounded hurt.

"Do I look like a two dollar whore from Amsterdam with coke and cum smeared on my face?" He actually laughed at that.

"Very well, I'll try to have something different prepared for you after dinner."

"Dinner?" I said.

"Yes, I think you should all meet each other before tomorrow."

"Who?"

"Kick-Ass, I said I'm a collector. Surely you know you're not the only superhero in the world?"


	6. Chapter Six

Dinner was served after the creeping shadows of dusk crawled into our cell.

As Mindy and I entered a great hall in our superhero regalia, Marcus Cain, sitting at the far end and head of the table, was recounting to the rest of his "guests" the time he won an Oscar. _Back when people thought you a serious young actor…30 years ago._ He was dressed in black robes with a white collar, strangely appearing like a priest. It didn't make a lot of sense, but not much these days did.

After Mindy and I sat, our black iron chains were tied to the table like the other guests. Several of Cain's mercenaries, all garbed in the brown of Franciscan monks, came to our cell ten minutes prior. They held Mindy at gunpoint and, more importantly, held me at point blank range. This ensured Hit-Girl was pliable. First they chained our hands to the iron cuffs and then they undid the ones that trapped us in the room. Lastly, they made us don our masks, and Mindy her cape, for the first time since we ran away together. We marched quietly to the hall afterwards, still at gunpoint. And here we sat in a room lit by candles. Many candles. There were great stained glass windows all around on the ponderous walls, but their beauty was hidden in the shadows of the night. Within this starkness was only the large, rectangular oak table, Marc Cain, his eight guests and twenty or so mercenaries aiming guns at them.

"Ah, the guests of honor have arrived," Cain said standing. No one else was able to oblige us. "Truly, the FIRST real-life superheroes," Cain said with a bow. "Welcome to my chateau."

"You own this place," I cooly responded.

"Yes, but it is in need of much repair. As you can guess, it's NOT actually a chateau, but rather an ancient prison that was built as a monastery before that, some 900 years ago."

"Oh," I replied. _That actually is pretty cool._ Cain took his seat once more.

"I had purchased this only a few weeks ago when I finally found…the rest of the collection. But it serves our needs beautifully and it allows me to dress for the occasion," he said pulling at his collar. "AND NOW WE'RE ALL HERE," he shouted to the high ceiling with his arms widespread. "Allow me to run through the introductions." He waved a hand around the table. "Everyone here knows the names Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl as well as they know Dave Lizewski and Mindy Macready. They are the names that brought worlds we once only dreamed of into our own.

"Almost everyone else here still has a secret identity," he said with a smirk. "While _I, of course,_ have learned them, I shall respect each's right to remain anonymous unless they choose otherwise or are already public. After all, the Justice League didn't begin by unmasking right away." This man clearly loved the sound of his own voice. "First we have _K-9_," he gestured to the old grizzled face to his right. "I believe he knows a number of you."

"I remember you," I said. The smile that crossed my face surprised me. "The last time we saw each other was during the Times Square brawl!" The old crusty man shifted with his mouth hidden under a thick white beard, but his eyes twinkled.

"And who, who was there," he said almost lyrically, "could say he remembers not serving with Kick-Ass…or Hit-Girl? It was truly one of the great honors of my life," he said with sincerity. His name is John Lecarro, I recalled. Sam Moore interviewed him for his book and he remained a superhero even after losing one of his dogs in that fight and developing a limp.

"Where's your shepherds?" inquired Mindy.

"It's just one now and our…_host _called it bad manners for her to be here tonight."

"Yes," Cain said interrupting. "We're all aware of the stories of K-9 and his hellhounds prowling the streets of New York. It's also no secret who he was. Captain John Lecarro was in charge of the canine division of his NYPD precinct until he took the law into his own hands." Everyone at the table knew the story. "But it is those connections that to this day that have kept him on the streets and tipped off about the criminals he takes in _alive_."

"He's weak," announced a man at the other end of the table. This man was garbed in a black hooded cloak with a black mask over all his face, save for his grey eyes.

"No, I'm just not a psychotic serial killer," countered a clearly annoyed K-9. _They must know one another._

"Better to bring justice to the wicked than serve as a _dog _to the corrupt," the Rorschach-wannabe retorted. Marc Cain started howling as he bent over in his seat.

"This is wonderful. They really are New York's Superman and Batman," he said. "Or perhaps Daredevil and Punisher? I don't know, but they fucking ROCK!" It took a minute for Cain to compose himself. "However, you spoke out of turn, _Ghost in the Darkness_," he said to the hooded man. "If you do not exercise appropriate manners at my table you will be banished with an empty stomach."

"I'd love to empty your stomach," Ghost in the Darkness muttered. "Yours and every coward and sinner's at this table." Cain nodded and two mercenaries walked up behind Ghost and smashed him in the skull with the butt of their guns.

"Do not worry, it is just a…night cap. I promise he'll be ready for tomorrow." Cain looked at everyone as if awaiting applause. "Shall we continue? Let's continue. Next to K-9, I'd like to introduce everyone to _The Asp._" To K-9's right was a beautiful, buxom woman with mesmerizing green eyes. She had her dark hair curled and pulled in braids to resemble Elizabeth Taylor in _Cleopatra_, with a gilded tiara in the shape of a snake coiled around her forehead. She wore a white gown embroidered with golden snakes rising up on the left and right side of her bodice. The garment dipped in a V to her nasal, showcasing her magnificent bosom along the way. I felt Mindy's eyes on me as I tried to focus on the Egyptian-esque woman's tiara and nothing more. "She hails from my hometown…the city of dreams," continued Cain.

"I've operated in Hollywood for only two years," she piped up, clearly nervous.

"Ah, don't be modest," Cain said with sympathy. "In those two years, you're alleged poison has been traced to the murders of almost two dozen mobsters and criminal low lives. It's almost as well-known as your appearances in the tabloids." She wouldn't turn her head to make eye contact with him.

"…Even if that were true, I am not a fighter. I should not be here."

"We all have our gifts," replied Cain with complete sweetness. "If Black Widow can battle alongside the Hulk, surely this group can have its own femme fatale." She continued to stare across the table at Kick-Ass, hoping for reassurance. I was hoping Mindy wouldn't see my eyes lower from Nefertiti's green irises for a second.

"And beside our seductress, we have the other Los Angelosian, _White Lightning._" A man slight of height, but with muscles bulging in his tight tunic, sat uncomfortably. He had a simple white mask that covered the top of his head and eyes like a bandit's and a black lighting bolt etched as an emblem on his chest. He wore a milky white cape.

"I too….am relatively new at this, but I _am_ the best at what I do."

"That's the spirit," Cain enthused. "This man is like a bobcat and has been just as dangerous for the East LA drug rings. Next to him is a particular favorite…_El Chupacabra."_ Finally, there was a man completely relaxed and at ease with this farce. He was of Hispanic lineage and had a pointy dark goatee on his face that matched his simple, domino mask. His outfit was a basic red body suit. _I hate "heroes" who wear red, _I unfairly judged. "Chupacabra is the only hero here not from a Me-TROPOLIS," the actor spazzed. "Rather, he is from the rural parts of the Texas-Arizona border where he imparts his own justice on "Minutemen" he views as too dangerous for immigrant populations."

"Only those I'm paid too," he said grinning at everyone. "_Hola!_ I too am honored to finally meet you Kick-Ass," he nodded to me. I returned it. "And _Señorita_," he said to Mindy with another nod, "I must confess I grew up fantasizing about you," he said sheepishly. Mindy blushed. God help me, Mindy blushed for the cheap flirtations of this douche who was probably younger than she was! _What the fuck? _He tossed one leg over an armchair and I realized he wasn't chained. _And what did he mean paid? Is he a hero fighting cruel rednecks or a hitman in disguise?_

"And lastly," Cain said, "To your left, is _Iron Mask._" Iron Mask sat on our side of the table and next to the seat Ghost in the Darkness just vacated. His mask looked more polished brass than iron to me, but with a emerald hood, it gave off an eerie effect. "He's from Chicago and…he doesn't speak. In fact, nobody has seen his face, including myself…I like it that way." These whirlwind introductions made me remember the "Avenging League" K-9 and I had been apart of. I was only eighteen at the time and knew little of how the world truly was, but it was the most awesome thing I'd ever seen then. Looking around the table made me shiver with nostalgic yearning for that simplicity.

"I have ASSEMBLED you here today for one purpose," Marc Cain monologued. "Some of you I've had captured for months," he gestured towards The Asp. "Some of you I paid for the honor of facing the _true _legends," he nodded at El Chupacabra. Mindy's face turned from a blushed red to the subtler color of rage. "And some of you are recent acquaintances," he pointed to Mindy and myself. "But you're all here today, because I've valued you as the best living superheroes in the world. And I intend to find out who is the best."

"If we're so great," said K-9, "Then why have us fight each other? Wouldn't you rather form a team?" None of us had any intention of working together, much less for Marcus Cain, but we all faked consensus with K-9's query.

"You don't get it," Cain scorned. "For all my life, people argued whose better, Batman or Superman? Spider-Man or Wolverine? Spider-Man or Batman? It never has an answer and everyone always claims their favorite is best. Well, in our reality, we CAN KNOW. I have my favorite," he winked at Mindy. "Tomorrow, after the greatest battle royale in human history, I will know who is the BEST SUPEHRERO the world has ever seen! And that superhero I will grant the gift of life and mercy."

"And what if we decide to work together, instead?"

Team-ups?" he glances over at me and Hit-Girl. "They can be tolerated to a point, but any pooling of powers to be redirected at me is strictly forbidden. Breaking this rule would mean instant disqualification." He seemed very proud of himself. At that moment, bowls of soup were served around the table by a mercenary forced to wear a cartoonish chef's hat. Each hero was given a dull, unpolished silver spoon.

"Soup is not my favorite either," Cain said after noting the lack of energy. "But for obvious reasons, I could not present any of you with forks and knives." Mindy shook her head and started to laugh.

"You won't give us forks, but you'll give us weapons to slaughter each other with tomorrow," she accused more than asked.

"I will give any of you what you require within reason: Swords, clubs, axes, staffs, and whatever else. However, I regret to say you will not have firearms. While my men, who will help me film this epic clash for posterity, will have assault rifles, submachine guns, and firepower you cannot imagine." Nobody said a word and only Chupacabra joined Cain in eating his soup. I was starving and so was Mindy, but breaking bread with this asshole was more than either of us could stomach.

"Come on," Cain said looking around the table. "Eat. EAT." After an awkward silence he looked over at Mindy and smiled. "If you don't eat, you won't get any dessert." She returned his smile.

"I won't have dessert until I taste your beating heart in my hand," she said with enough blunt force to drop a rhino. Asp giggled nervously. After a moment, Cain found his words.

"A bold jest!" he smiled.

"A promise," Mindy ensured. Marc Cain slouched bag in his chair deflated. He looked up and nodded. Thuggish mercs unchained us from the table and escorted us back to our cell.

.

With the door shut behind us, I rubbed my wrists and saw Mindy doing the same. They had left us with a solitary candle for light and did not chain us this evening.

"Why leave us unchained," I asked.

"To fuck with our heads. Prove they're in complete control."

"Then why chain us in the first place?"

"For the same reason."

Mindy spent over half an hour searching the room for systematic weaknesses, but there were none to be found. No stones to push in, no loose bar in the window to be broken. We were prisoners for the foreseeable future. Mindy finally joined sitting on the bed next to me, putting her head on my shoulder. Neither of us had taken off our masks. She began running her fingers through my face.

"You know, I prefer you without the beard," she told me with an _mmmm_.

"Really?"

"Yeah. You no longer look like an old man."

"Well...That's why I thought you liked it." We had a silent laugh and found an odd moment of tranquility sitting there.

"Are you going to fight for that jackass tomorrow," she finally asked me.

"I don't want to kill other heroes, but…"

"I have no problem killing," Mindy interrupted. "But good people trying to make their communities better? Even if they're a bit off like Daddy—Daddy was trying to help people, Dave…Daddy didn't deserve..."

"Mindy." She raised her head and looked at me. "Your Daddy was a good man. But you're a better person than him and soon you're going to be _Mommy._ I don't want to hurt any of those people, but if it comes down between them and you. Them and _her_," I said with my hand on the flat of her stomach, "It's the two of you. It's the two of you by a thousand miles. I promise you Mindy, whatever happens tomorrow, _nothing _will happen to you. Nothing." Mindy didn't say a word, she just looked at me gratefully and kissed me on the cheek.

"I love you, Ass-Kick," she said.

"And I love you too, my crazy wife." I wanted to say more. I wanted to say how much she meant to me, how she's saved my life every day since she's come back into it. That she gave me meaning. But I couldn't articulate that. I couldn't find the words.

She got off the bed and looked at the outfit hanging on the door. It had been there since we came back from dinner, but she had ignored it up to this point. It was the Hit-Girl costume. The _original _Hit-Girl costume. A purple motorcycle padded jacket and pants, the plaid mini-skirt, the pink "HG" belt. Everything, except the wig. And now, it was in an adult size. Even in the candlelight, I could see Mindy's eyes shimmer with nostalgia. More than she'd ever care to admit. Eventually, she whirled around to face me.

"At least, I won't have to wear this slut rag," she said.

"I don't know...I kind of like _slutty _Hit-Girl."

"I always knew you were a pervert," she mocked. Her smile slowly turned wicked and her eyes grew luminous as the flame danced in light and shadow on her face. She reached for her cape's clasp and a second later it was on the floor. She arched her back and heaved her chest at me as it fell.

"_Mindy_," I said. She ignored it and slowly sauntered forward.

"What if someone's watching?"

"Hopefully, they'll cum too." Soon, she was only inches away form me. Teasing me.

"Mindy, I'm not sure this is a good idea. Tomorrow is a big day."

"It could be our last day," she whispered ruefully as she started pulling at my wet suit. "Besides…I always wanted Kick-Ass to _fuck me_ stupid."

"And he hasn't," I responded skeptically, trying to maintain my resolve. She rubbed her hair against my smooth face and continued playing with my costume.

"Not with that mask on." I felt the rest of my wetsuit falling to the floor and her fingers wrap around my cock. She twisted it in the _good way._ Half a second later I found myself trying undo the lacing of her corset while she laughed at me. Half a minute after that, I gave up in frustration and was ripping it off. Hit-Girl purred as I started kissing her neck.

"So, you're kinda' my bitch," she whispered.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I threw back. Her hand tightened as she stroked. My own was squeezing at her breasts while the other arm wrapped around the arch of her back, pulling her into me. The hand snaked around her hips and pushed her shorts away while the fingertips searched for the nub above her opening. _Eureka._

"Oh fuck," she whimpered and gasped. She fell back onto the bed, still wearing her purple mask, purple boots, and purple, purple hair. If only the loose chains tangling around her legs were also purple. In an instant I descended on her and inside of her with a ferocity unknown to me. With every thrust, my mouth devoured at her face, her neck, and her nipples as if it were tasting water after a year in the desert.

Her mumbling, "Dave," was the last coherent word either of us made that night. We didn't need them.


	7. Chapter Seven

Hit-Girl took a slow step forward, wretched her body ready for attack and…vomited into the Mediterranean.

"You're making too much noise," I couldn't help but smirk. She'd told me that more times than I could count when I wore this costume on a regular basis.

"Shut the fuck up," she threatened from one knee. "Don't think I'll forget you did this to me, you bas…" and she heaved again.

"Pregnancy really is a beautiful thing." She muttered something but all I could make out was _goddamn _and _asshole._ Such had been the joys of the morning.

.

Cain's "brothers" came to wake us before dawn. Mindy was already up and dressed when she tapped me.

"They're coming," is all she said. I was struggling with my boots when they entered. Without telling us much they marched us outside the dungeon we'd been imprisoned in the last few days. In the cool hue of a dark morning, I realized the castle was more a tower. From the outside you could see that it probably was originally meant to be a monastery - a very, very long time ago. Marcus Cain waited for for us. He no longer wore his priest attire and instead was dressed like a safari hunter. He had a buttoned down white shirt, tan shorts, socks pulled up to his knees, a worn hunting vest, and a brown hat that would have done Crocodile Dundee proud. All that was missing was a gun. Instead he had an HD video camera. Fortunately for him, he was surrounded by most of his men who were heavily strapped with serious firepower.

"Good morning, Kick-Ass. Good morning, Hit-Girl." He bowed with more faux humility. I fought the urge to hit him. Hit-Girl and I were still unchained, but we were also unarmed and could have been gunned down on the spot before we got close to him. "If you head four kilometers southwest from our location, you'll find buried under a round Burton-esque tree your weapons."

"I thought we could choose them," Mindy said dryly.

"In your case…I made the decisions for you. Trust me you'll be happy with the selection," he smiled. After a moment, the silence became awkward. "Go, go," he said. His men parted from blocking our path.

"You're going to just let us walk into the forest," I asked in disbelief.

"You'll find it's a very small island with no inhabitants, but we few souls. And the weapon caches for each hero or heroes are separate." He bowed again and Mindy and I had little choice but press down a hill towards the Southwest.

.

Cain was not kidding about the island being small. We found the weapons quick enough: two green batons based on my classic design and two Benchmade Model 42 Butterfly knives. I suspected Cain was smarter than he seemed by not handing a sword to Hit-Girl. Once equipped, the question was obvious: _What now?_

Mindy and I decided we didn't want to kill anybody, much less superheroes, unless we have to. So, instead of running back to the tower or around it looking for a fight, we pushed to the west for the coast. _Surely, there has to be a way off this rock._ There wasn't. As light replaced dark, we spent several hours walking the flat coastline. We rounded over what must have been a third of the island in such short time and there was still no sign of life, save for birds landing on watery rocks looking for fish. There was no dock on this side either. For Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl's comeback to boil down to an anxious walk on the beach honestly felt ridiculous. And that was _before _morning sickness fell upon Mindy.

Quickly, our concerns turned from finding a way off the island to hoping nobody on it heard Hit-Girl gagging into the water.

"Are you sure someone could hear me," she asked again.

"No," I replied. "But just in case someone was in the same earshot range as that of, say, a dying elephant…I'd like to get off the beach." She punched me in the arm as we made our way back into the forest. It was flatter on the eastern side of the island, but also muddier. If anyone was listening to us by the water, they likely heard our tracks in the soft ground. An hour earlier we had heard a scream, but it was so far away we couldn't tell whose it was. As we walked silently, my mind began to wander. _If only there was someway of flanking Cain and his men. They form a line around him, but if we could get his attention…_

Hit-Girl's arm ran into my chest. She stopped us dead in our tracks and held a finger up to her mouth. I listened, but couldn't hear anything. Then a branch shuffled and it didn't sound like wind. _Fuck a duck._ I don't know where he came from, but Ghost in the Darkness was swinging his long sword at my head. Mindy tried to move me, but I'd already dodged it easily enough by myself. _I haven't forgotten everything, Hit-Girl._ She smiled as she ducked backwards and then flipped over Ghost's second swing. She pulled out her butterfly knives and looked at me.

"Keep out of my way." I would have protested, but I heard a branch from overhead break and looked up in time to see White Lightning's foot. I moved just enough so the foot only brushed against my shoulder, but it still fucking hurt. He was stronger than I first thought. He caught himself in midair and was trying to chop me with his hand before his feet touched the ground. I avoided this all together, but he had me off balance. He hopped like a fucking jackrabbit to my right and around a tree. I heard him come wooshing from behind but couldn't stop him as he buried a jab in between my shoulder blades. I stumbled forward, but caught myself at the knees.

Further, down in the wood I saw Mindy in a very uneven sword fight. Ghost in the Darkness was striking overhead and slicing below with his katana. Hit-Girl was struggling to keep him at bay with her agility and quick reflexes. I noticed she wasn't using her knives. _The reach of a katana around those things is too dangerous even for her_. Within the same second, White Lightning stood in front of me and lifted a bow he had hidden behind a tree somewhere.

"Are you and Ghost working together?" I asked. The sudden question gave White Lightning pause and he hesitated in his attack stance. _He really is a rookie._

"For now…Ghost in the Darkness says…" I lunged at him before he finished his sentence. My batons were out and aimed at his face. He blocked them with his bow and flashed anger at my impropriety. He literally flipped _over _my head. I turned around and he was gone. Then there was another woosh from behind. I was more prepared and turned to see the bow just as it crashed into my rib cage. I shortened my breath before I choked. White Lightning didn't stop for chitchat this time. Instead, he charged towards me. I readied my batons, but right before contact he hopped behind a tree to my left. _You need to be less predictable._ My feet were already in the air when I heard the woosh. By the time he reached me, I had thrown my right baton against the nearest tree, off which it ricocheted. It landed lower than I expected, crashing into his kneecap. He let out an eardrum-shattering cry and dropped his bow. I threw myself at him again and we went rolling into the mud.

Ghost had knocked away one of Hit-Girl's butterfly knives and was starting to close in on her with his katana. I wanted to help her, but instead I was trying to push the not-so-White Lightning's face into the mud. I was furious. I saw Marc Cain's face in his mask. I saw Stevie Augustus's face. Chris D'Amico's. Even Frank D'Amico's…until I actually looked into his eyes. The terror. I had killed before, but not in a long time and never this brutally. _Not in the mud._ My hands loosened from his head. He saw the opening and punched me under the jaw. When the world stopped spinning he was running through the woods. _Fuck._ I looked over at Mindy and she had disarmed Ghost of his katana. She now held the sword while he removed a thin needle of a knife from his sleeve. After a sigh, I followed after White Lightning.

Back on the beach I found him limping on the sand. I'd done more damage to his knee than I realized. As I approached, I could see the terror even more clearly on his whole face.

"Don't…please don't," he begged.

"You're the one who attacked us. Playing Cain's stupid little game." I took a closer step and he tripped, falling flat on his face. He rolled over and held his hands up.

"Please…I worship you, man. You were my hero growing up!" I gritted my teeth as I pulled at my baton.

"Funny way of showing it."

"NO!" he screamed with tears in his eyes. He removed his mask.

"I'M NOT A SUPERHERO! I only wanted to be like you!" Seeing his face took my breath away. "And now…I only want to go home."

"You're…just a kid."

"I'm sixteen!" he shouted back, finally showing some defiance. "The same age as when you started!" _My God. He looks like he's twelve._ I felt the baton fall from my hand. He noticed that and hope returned to his watery eyes. "Please! Please, don't."

"Can you walk?" He looked anxiously at his leg. He shook his head like a child.

"Good. Stay here and keep low. Hopefully, this will be over soon enough." He looked confused.

"You're going to leave me here?"

"Yes," I said picking up the baton.

"But, but—" I smacked him in the head with it. Nothing serious. But he would wake up with a shitty headache this evening.

When I came back to our battleground, Hit-Girl had Ghost in the Darkness on his knees. We couldn't see his face, but his composure seemed much more stable than White Lightning's. The man in black didn't even seem to mind it was his own katana being held at his throat from a woman half his size now towering over him.

"Do you yield," Hit-Girl dryly asked her prey. She must have seen me approach, but she did not acknowledge my presence at all. After a long silence, "Do you yield," she hissed with more anger in her voice.

"Never surrender, even in the face of Armageddon!" he suddenly yelled. _Poser._ He unsheathed another hidden blade from his other sleeve and Mindy cut him from ear to ear. He was dead by the time she let his head slide into the mud. She looked at me, her eyes as cold as her new steel.

"Shall we?" She hid the sword underneath her cape and pulled one of her new butterfly knives from the ground and placed it back on her belt.

.

If Marc Cain was filming this, we still hadn't seen him. Further inland at the base of a large hill, we found two more dead bodies. The first belonged to Asp. She had been stabbed in the belly and had a sickening shade of anguish spread across her face. She died in pain. _This is so pointless_. Near her body lay Iron Mask. I couldn't tell where the point of death had been, but whoever finished him off had removed his mask. For some masked marvel, he looked like a pretty normal 30-something schmuck underneath, save for the frozen agony on his face. His lips were swollen and discolored from something. We heard more yells at the top of the steep hill.

"Do you really want to see what's up there," I asked Mindy.

"No." I was surprised by her brevity. "But if we don't…" she touched her stomach. "Who knows, maybe Cain will show his face and I'll get to _sketch _on him too." I chuckled. I doubt he'll make it that easy.

.

It turns out the hill made up the center of the island. The further we hiked the more the geography made sense. I could see the top of the tower below our left flank as we climbed. _Could __Cain be shooting from somewhere up here?_ Wouldn't_ he be missing his movie? _

Near the top, we found more stone foundations overlooking a steep drop. It looked like it was a house of some kind built around the same time as the monastery. It was situated in a clearing from the trees that overlooked the steep drop to the Northeast that was a little less than a cliff. With clouds gathering overhead, it seethed an ominously gray. Unlike the tower, whoever preserved that as a prison did not save this place. All that was left were ruins. That and K-9 battling El Chupacabra to the death.

K-9 swung his mighty club at El Chupacabra's head. The Latin anti-hero dodged it with grace and slashed with his customized dagger at K-9's throat. K-9 avoided the slash and pulled Chupacabra's bladed arm into a weathered stone wall where the knife stuck. As the red cape tried to pull it out, the old war horse garbed in camouflage simply smashed his club across Chupacabra's face. He hit the ground with a thud. K-9 stood above him and raised the club above his head.

"For the last time," he said between deep breaths, "I don't want to kill you. This is not Battle World or Secret Wars." Chupacabra spat blood onto the side of his mouth and gave a heinous smile.

"I wasn't forced here old man. I grew up idolizing you assholes. Now, I'm going to break you." The old man just looked tired. He lifted his head and saw us watching.

"This one killed The Asp," he told us. _Good to see K-9 at least has some common sense left._

"And that cunt killed Iron Mask," Chupacabra said again with more blood spittle.

"Somehow he thinks if he kills us all, it'll make him better than us," K-9 sighed.

"I'm already better than you. Now, I will become you. You're golden age, pops." He clicked his boots together and a blade came out of the tip of one. He shoved it into K-9's thigh. The old man screamed. I was about to rush to help him, but Hit-Girl grabbed my arm.

"Mindy!"

"Just wait a second." K-9 fell to the ground and started crawling to the steep end of the clearing. Chupacabra kicked in his sides before going to the crumbling stones and pulling his knife out. He casually strolled over to the injured superhero, placed the cold dagger against his jugular and looked at us.

"I'm the next generation. I'm the hero for the social media age." He pointed to the button clasping his red cape on. "You see this, you old fuck? It's a wide-angle fiber-optic lens." He kicked K-9 again. "It already shows that Asp was better than Iron Mask, and I was too much man for that slut. And now?" He raised his knife arm back, "It will show that the mighty K-9 also died like a bitch."

"You two, will be next," he said with a wink. Hit-Girl smiled at him, as she still wouldn't let me go. "Any last words, pops?"

"…Attack," he whispered. Seemingly out of nowhere, a giant German Shepherd pounced from the trees and galloped at El Chupacabra with unbelievable speed. Before he could react it was on top of him, biting at his throat. He tried to push it off, but tripped backwards. He went tumbling down the steep corner of the hill with the dog.

Hit-Girl turned to me. "Now, you may go." We walked over to the edge of the hill and saw the dog happily trotting up the long face. El Chupacabra lay halfway to the bottom with his throat ripped out. I turned and grinned as K-9 used his old battle club to push himself to his feet.

"That little prick was insane," he muttered.

"No," I said. "He was young and full of shit." Hit-Girl walked up and let K-9 lean on her.

"Can you walk," she asked.

"Not really," he muttered. "I guess that means I yield to you two." Hit-Girl barely had time to smile before K-9's head exploded into a gooey red-and-pink gush across her purple hair. Mindy seemed genuinely shell shocked by that, but I clenched my teeth and prepared.

Strolling down from the very top of the hill's small tree line came Marc Cain in his ever-ridiculous outfit and his entire paid guard. They flanked around him and behind him with enough firepower to invade a small country.

"_WHY?_" Mindy screamed with a sense of desperate outrage in her voice.

Cain lowered his video camera and hit pause. "Hold on just a second…Sorry, about that, I can't actually be on the videos of this epicness. What were you saying?"

"Why," Mindy muttered. Her question was punctuated as one of his goons gunned down K-9's German Shepherd as it came running up the hill's corner.

"When we're done, go down and retrieve the camera," Cain said before looking back at Mindy. "Oh. He yielded." All that was missing in his tone was _duh!_ "There's no yielding. I said this was to find out who was the best superhero. He obviously wasn't it." I resisted the thought of unsheathing my baton and trying to shove it down his smug throat. He smiled at us as he stopped about a hundred feet away still in the wooded part of the hill. I grabbed Hit-Girl's hand. It was my turn to pull her. I walked us up to Cain and his men. "I'm so happy to see y'all made it. I was afraid I wouldn't get you on tape at all, but I suppose it's not surprising some tried to find a way off. Where's Ghost in the Darkness and White Lightning?"

I cleared my throat of what felt like sand. "They're both dead," I have lied. "You have your winners. We're the best. _yay_."

"Winners?" Cain's smile vanished with that. "Did I say I was looking for the best superhero team or the best _SUPERHERO?"_ Hit-Girl's funk vanished instantly as a cold, horrific sensation grabbed her.

"What the fuck," she mouthed more than said. Cain rolled his eyes like he had to explain subtraction to kindergartners.

"I want only ONE hero. One whose name will become the gold standard forever. Unlike Marvel or DC…we will know WHO IS THE FUCKING BEST!"

"You're God's perfect asshole," is all I said.

"And you have a girlfriend to kill…" Mindy looked at me with genuine fear and confusion. For the first time ever, she didn't know what she was supposed to do. "…or to be killed by, Kick-Ass." We just stared at one another. Her eyes were pleading. She then pulled out a butterfly knife and tried to jump on top of Cain. I knew what she was going to do before she did and caught her in my arms before she got close to him.

"What are you fucking DOING?" she screamed at me.

"Saving your life," I screamed back as she struggled in my arms. "If you touch him, they're going to kill you!" Indeed, all 20-25 guns were aiming directly at us as I tried to control this crazy girl. Cain was suppressing a giggle as he watched.

"Fuck it, we can kill them all!"

"Not like this…you'd need to surprise them. This isn't how we can win."

"Then what, Kick-Ass," she sneered with dripping venom.

"Um, hello?" Cain interrupted. "You fight. To the death." Mindy quit struggling in my arms and just glared at me and then Cain. Cain pulled the handgun from one of his merc's belts and aimed it at Mindy's head. "Or I kill you both, and don't have the best Youtube video in the world." I let go of Mindy and she stood her ground, burning holes in Cain's face.

"Pull the trigger, if you have the balls."

"Oh I will," he said before lowering his aim. "But it won't be at your pretty head." He was now pointing the gun at her belly. "I'll kill your kid, first."

"Motherfucker!" she cried. She looked at me. I nodded. _It's the only way._ I unsheathed my batons and held them up.

"Damn you, Dave. Seriously, goddamn you." She raised her butterfly knives.

"_Finally!"_ Cain screamed. He raised his video camera and hit record. "This is what I've been waiting for!" He high fived one of his men with a laugh.

"Do it, Mindy," I said. She just stood there, with a blank defeated look on her face. _Fucking-A, Mindy. Put on a show!_ "DO IT!" I bellowed. I swung a baton at her head and she dodged it. "COME ON DO IT!" I thrust the other baton at her left leg and she raised her foot and side stepped me. "FUCKING DO IT!" I rammed both batons down at her face and she deflected them with her butterfly knife and started moving. "THAT'S IT!"

"Fuck you!" she yelled. She deflected my batons again. And again. And again. She was now actually moving and it looked like a fight. It _felt _like a fight. She started slashing her blades at me, but I was dodging them with ease. Too much ease. _She's still holding back._

"He's not going to let me go, Dave!" she said between strikes.

"I know that." I dodged another half-hearted stab.

"Then why are you trying to get me to kill you!"

"I'm trying to save your life. Our baby's life…"

"THAT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR," she screeched with fury. Her eyes were turning red as she was starting to push against my batons with real force. Her strikes trembled with rage and resentment. "You can't use that against me and play the martyr!" I spun around her and pivoted, so I could block her kick. I began backing up to the tree line to the right of Cain's many goons.

"I'm not."

"I won't kill you, Ass-Kick!" As we fell in closer to the trees, I wrapped my batons around her two knives and pulled our two bodies close together.

"And I won't kill you." As our weapons interlocked, I kissed her passionately on the face. This surprised not only her, but everyone watching. _And they are all watching._ I finally pulled back my lips. It was the second time I saw genuine confusion and surprise on Mindy's face. "Get your katana ready." She looked at me still not understanding. "And take cover, child."

"Dave, no…"

"And switch to _Robin's Revenge!_"

_"DAVID!"_

I released her arms AND spun with a sudden urgency.

"CAIN!" I screamed with both batons out. I charged the longest 20 yards of my life to get to him, centered amongst his men. They were all still looking at me as Hit-Girl jumped into a thicket of trees. Whoever was watching her either was too slow or aiming his gun at me.

"What the…" Cain began, but his men cut him off as they opened fire. Assault rounds. .9 millimeter bullets. Metal sprays. Machine gun fire. They were all flying through the air around me. I didn't feel the first one. Nor the second. Not even the third. I noticed I was stumbling after the fourth or fifth one went somewhere into my body. I caught myself with one foot and took a few more strained steps towards Cain, screaming my lungs out. The next two bullets entered simultaneously at different points. Now, the pain was rushing through every fiber of my being. I collapsed on my back two feet from Cain as a few more went in. Truth be told, I didn't know how many gushing holes were in my body as I lay there.

"Ah, fuck!" one of the faceless mercs cried from somewhere in their small crowd. A smile curled across my lips.

"…Hit-Girl."

There was screaming and yelling within the group. Mass confusion spread as they started turning their guns in all directions. At least two or three were probably killed by shooting each other. Mindy was cut through them with her sword like they were horses in a glue factory. Before they could hit her, she'd dart back into the trees and come from a different angle. They were completely confused and helpless. _This won't last long. _Seeing it from this low angle reminded me of when I first met Mindy. She was a pint-sized killing machine at 11-years-old. She cut through a slew of drug dealers in similar fashion while I sat there with my thumbs up my ass. The irony was not lost on me now.

Soon enough, there were only three or four left — plus Marcus Cain.

"Shoot her," he whined. "Kill her!" I actually saw her this time. As the last guys started spreading out, she came up from under a pile of dead bodies and slit one guy's throat with her katana within an instant. She tossed a butterfly knife like a homing missile into the heart of the man farthest from her. She pulled out a handgun she must have taken from a dead body a while ago and fired it into the stomach of the one merc trying to reload his gun and two more into his head, before pouncing on the last one with butterfly knife out. She stabbed him in the face and body at least a dozen times in a few seconds while she screamed bloody murder. Finally she turned to Cain who was trying to run away. She briskly walked up to him as he stumbled over dead bodies. She grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into the blood and dirt.

"H-Hit-Girl, please. I just thought, I just thought, it'd be…." He wasn't allowed to finish that sentence or any other. With butterfly knife in hand, she began hacking away at his chest like a fiend. She didn't make a noise while the actor screamed true agony for his final death scene. In less than a minute she was holding a red, beating blob in her hand. When Cain saw it above him he stopped screaming long enough for his eyes to bulge out. She tilted her head and I could barely catch a glimpse of hesitation on her face. _A promise is a promise._ She took a small, but juicy bite out of the thumping organ before Cain stopped twitching.

"Mmmy wwife," I garbled with splashes of blood in my chuckling mouth. Mindy must have heard me, because her back stiffened in an instant and she turned to run to me.

"_Dave_," she whispered to herself as she knelt down next to me. She tried to place her hands over one bullet hole that was probably in my lungs. She then moved a hand down to try to cover another in my stomach. She even tried to cover one of the leg holes with her boot. "David…what have you done." I just leaned my head into her lap, happy to see her there, happy to see the flowing tears run down her face and mingle with the pools of other men's blood. _My crazy, beautiful wife_, I wanted to say. _Don't cry. You're so much prettier when you smile._ I tried to tell her that, but only blood was coming out of my mouth. She raised my head up next to hers and removed my mask. Our foreheads touched.

"You can't go," her raspy voice ordered, like I had a choice. "You have to keep your baby safe." _I already have, Mindy._ I tried to laugh, but there was only red.


	8. Epilogue

She skipped passively through the corridors around the big room where all the grown-ups were talking.

The little girl sighed and wished she was home playing with her neighborhood friends, Nathalie and Nicolette. However, Mommy insisted she come here today. It's not that she _didn't _want to come, but whenever they came to these places, Mommy would get so sad. The girl never knew what to say.

Eventually she reentered the spacious room where there were too many adults for her to count (though she struggles counting past twenty). They were all drinking bubbly gold water and smiling at each other. The walls surrounded them with drawings of faces, places and colors. The girl's seen some of them before, but she has trouble focusing on most of them unless it's a face. The floors were a dark wood that complimented the white walls and soft lights. The girl spotted a woman in an elegant black dress with a purple scarf. _Mommy_. It seemed to her that Mommy's favorite colors were black and purple, because those were the colors she always wore. The girl looked at her mother's beautiful golden hair pulled back in a formal style. She wishes she had pretty yellow hair too, but hers was brown and curly. Tired of waiting she ran up to her mother.

"Mommy," she said a little too loudly as she ran up to her leg. Mommy looked down beaming a delighted (and relieved) smile.

"Danielle," she said to her daughter. "Have you been enjoying the exhibition?" The little girl sighed, unable to even pronounce the word. She just knew that it meant _Daddy's_ pictures were on the walls.

"Yes, Mommy," the little one pouted.

"Oh she's just darling," said the woman who'd been talking to Mommy. She leaned down to Danielle and gave her a broad, toothy grin. Dany backed up and leaned against her mother's leg. The strange woman forced a laugh.

"Hi," she said in a big, shrill voice. "I'm Constance, and this is my gallery, my dear." The stranger was speaking in Nathalie's language.

"_Je m'appelle Danielle," _the girl replied. She struggled going between how Mommy talked and everyone else, but Mommy also insisted she know both of these as well.

"Charming," Constance said. "I knew your father." Dany nodded, unable to remember if she's met the strange lady before. "A great man who captured the cultivated pain of oppression bound to inevitably cry out." The child stared blankly at the woman.

"I think she's too young to understand that," Mommy said helpfully. Constance stood back up and took a small sip of her bubbly gold-water.

"Yes…Well, one day she'll know. I'd like to thank you again Madame Ayers for letting me showcase the rest of the catalogue." Mommy forced a pleasant demeanor on her face.

"…It was past time to let go."

"It's not letting go," interrupted Constance. "Owen was the voice of the downtrodden. If we'd only listened to his work sooner, we could have seen the riots and fires coming."

"…Owen, liked to paint," was all Mommy could say in response.

"And we're all _richer _for it," Constance said with a laugh. She soon excused herself from Mommy and Danielle.

"Is this the last of Daddy's work," Dany asked.

"Yes, darling. It's the last he painted before…he made you." Mommy's eyes became clouded with wistfulness. Danielle hated seeing her mother at events like this, because she'd always cry after. Mommy took a deep breath. "Are you ready to leave, baby girl?"

"Yes!" she blurted out. Mommy suppressed a chuckle as onlookers from around stared at them.

"Alright, we can—" Mommy was interrupted by a man tapping her on the shoulder. He was a tall, handsome man with piercing dark eyes that matched his hair and a close, cropped goatee. He wore a dark suit with a pale blue shirt and no tie. Dany's mother was so surprised she actually smiled. _Mommy never smiles at stranger-men._ The man kissed her hand while Mommy continued to act odd.

"It's been a long time," the man said as he released her hand. The woman in the purple scarf was actually at a loss for words.

"You're…"

"Benicio," he replied helpfully.

"Yes…you were at the funeral."

"We did talk there, but you seemed to need your space." _Mommy does like her space._ Her eyes began to cloud again.

"It was a rough time," she sighed.

"For the whole city…I can't believe it took a week to even find him or…" Benicio trailed off, knowing he was driving far off the road. After a silence, he ordered more bubbly water from the men dressed like penguins. "I saw you talking to Constance."

"Yes, this is _her_ show. I'll just take Owen's share when it's over."

"That should be considerable. She managed to turn a street rat like myself into a professional. I can't imagine what she can do with someone whose truly great."

"You believe all that bullshhh," she muttered under her breath. "About him being the voice of the rioters?"

"What did you say, Mommy?" Danielle looked up. She'd never heard the word bull-something before.

"'Brilliant,' darling. I said, brilliant." The mother didn't bat an eye. She continued to smile at Benicio.

"I believe Owen was a great artist whose tragedy made people aware." Benicio turned and looked down at Danielle. His face was warm and comforting. Dany liked him. Mommy half smiled at that, but it was becoming more formal again. "Can I say something frank?"

"Of course," Mommy answered with trepidation.

"I'm surprised you stayed in Paris after all that happened."

"Owen's work and name was here," she said dutifully. She appeared to be suppressing a laugh to herself. "I also wanted..._we _wanted to give our daughter a tad more stability than my childhood."

"Was your father a bohemian, then?" Mommy was truly smiling again and trying hard not to crack up.

"Something like that." Benicio flashed a gorgeous smile of his own that Dany liked a lot.

"And who is this enchanting beauty?" he asked looking down.

"Danielle Ayers," Mommy said. "Or just Dany."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, _Mademoiselle_," he said bending a knee. The way he said the last word made her giggle. "My name is Benicio. I was a friend of your father's before he…went away."

"You mean, died?" Benicio was surprised by the little girl saying such a word. He looked up at the mother.

"It's okay," she said. "I explained it long ago." Benicio nodded. "Before that, he and I used to draw Americans together." He leaned his head in close. "He was a brave man. A hero that got your mother out of a burning building before it engulfed three city blocks." Dany had heard this before. But she liked the sound of the pretty man's voice. It sounds funny.

"How old are you, Mademoiselle?"

"Five!"

"Four," Mommy corrected. Dany scowled up at her. "And a quarter." Benicio laughed.

"Do you like daisies?" Dany didn't know that word.

"What's a daisy?"

"Why…it's what's right above your ear," he exclaimed as he pulled one from her hair. _How'd he do that?_ He put it in her hand and she immediately began to smell and idolize it. Benicio stood back onto his feet.

"I'm glad we could finally see each other again," he told Mommy.

"Yes…it's nice."

"Maybe we could talk a little more casually over coffee? Perhaps, on Saturday?" Mommy began to stiffen her back. Men always wanted to meet Mommy, but she always tensed up and backed away.

"I don't know if I can do…"

"Why don't you bring Dany. We can make it a lunch instead."

"Ooh, yes!" cried Danielle. Maybe the pretty man could find more daisies in her hair. The woman in the purple scarf looked down at her daughter. Her eyes were dancing with hope.

"Just lunch," she finally told Benicio.

"Saturday," he replied with a thankful nod. He looked down at Dany again.

"We will meet again, Mademoiselle. Until then, _Que la force soit avec toi_." The girl knew it sounded like Nathalie's language again, but she couldn't understand this.

"What does that mean?"

"May the Force be with you."

"What does _that_ mean?" Benicio chuckled ruefully.

"You'll know soon enough. In your family_, how can you not?_" He exchanged a few more strange glances with Mommy and then departed.

"He seemed nice," the mother said to her daughter when he left.

"Mommy, what did he mean Daddy was a hero?" The mother looked down in all seriousness to the question. "Does he mean he was a superhero like Spider-Man or Batman?"

"Your father…he was the best man I ever knew. He was more than a hero. He was your father and he loved that and he loved you more than being a hero."

"Oh." Dany didn't really understand what Mommy said, but she knew not to dwell on Daddy too much, lest Mommy get upset.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked again.

"Yes, Mommy." She placed her hand in her mother's and they began walking towards the exit.

"I think we may stop by the ice cream shop on the way home."

"REALLY? You're the best Mommy ever!" The scarfed woman smiled at that.

"Have you thought a little bit more what about what you might want for Christmas?"

"Yes…" Dany didn't know if she should say it aloud. It might cause Santa to not want to make it true.

"Well?"

"Can I get a puppy?" Feet from the door, Mommy stopped and looked down at her daughter. _Oh no!_ Yet, her mother surprisingly began to laugh.

"Of course you can have a puppy. A cuddly and fluffy one." She took her daughter's hand again and they pushed through the doors. It was coolly brisk that afternoon, but as they stepped out their faces were warmed by the light.

THE END


	9. Author's Note

So…Kick-Ass is Dead! I'd like to apologize to anyone that may have upset. I know, I was sad to see him go too. It was not my initial idea for the story, but I'll get to that in a moment. First, I'd like to thank anyone who has read this story and hope you have read the two proceeding "Still Kicking." If you haven't, please check out "Kicking Ass For Life" and "Life Kicked Back."

When I set out to write this, I did not plan to kill off Dave. I started writing because I wanted to spend more time with these fun, nutty characters. When I wrote KAFL, it was essentially my attempt to do a "Kick-Ass 2" sequel to the movie and emulate that distinct voice. LKB was more my story and went into things that I was interested in seeing such as more drama, more meta-deconstruction, and just exploring these characters as adults. It was also, ultimately, a love story between Dave and Mindy — albeit an intentionally understated and adult one that tried to get away from the angst and sweetness of adolescence.

I realized later that I still hadn't written an actual story when they were together. I wanted to see the domesticity of these characters and what years of living together might do to their quirks and personalities in daily life. That's how the story began. I didn't have an inkling Dave was going to die until Chapter 2. I probably didn't know for sure until either Chapter 3 or 4. The problem I have with a lot of sequels or ongoing stories is that they never finish and usually end up going in circles or flat out repeating themselves. If I returned to this well, I didn't want to just repeat my last two stories or even the original film/comic. For example, my first idea was to have the mob come after them and after a tragedy, they'd seek vengeance in costume….a la BD and HG.

I'll freely admit Marcus Cain is not my greatest creation, even though I like the satirical elements he brought, but he was able to take the story and characters to a different place that made the time it took to write this fic – and hopefully to read it – worthwhile. However, it's not meant to be a tragedy. Dave has always struggled with the responsibilities of adulthood. That goes back to the original Millar comic. I had him understand that in my second fic. In this one, he is embracing that "great responsibility" mantra and is finding a way to protect and serve a child he was sure that he couldn't. Hopefully, seeing their girl happy and safe years later and Mindy able to be the parent to her daughter Damon should have been makes it worth it for the characters and readers.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story. And if you did, _**please **_leave a review. If you do, I'll try to respond. I don't think this is necessarily my last KA fic, but I'm pretty sure it's the last of the story/universe I set out to write about a year ago. Thanks for reading!

Peace.


End file.
